Hmong

Light From a Burning Citadel

Once this highland was our birthplace. Once

we were children of kings.

Now I am a Siamese rosewood on fire.

I am a skin of sagging curtain.

I am a bone of bullet hole.

I am locked in the ash oven of a forest.

Peb yog and we will be.

The sky sleeps quilted in a militia of stars.

Someone has folded

gold and silver spirit

money into a thousand tiny boats.

Peb yog

hmoob and we will be.

I am hungry as the beggar who cracked

open a coconut to find

the heart of a wild gaur.

Hmoob and we

will be.

The tree is more ancient

than its homeland,

shedding its annual citrine

as hourglass dripping honey.

Peb yeej ib txwm yog

hmoob.

I dig and dig for no more roots to dig.

I soldier with my severed

legs, my fallen ear.

I’ve become the shrill

air in a bamboo pipe—the breath

of an army of bells.

Mai der Vang, EUA (1981)

Notas

                                                                                                                                                                                                                    ¹ Somos

² Somos Hmong

³ Sempre temos sido/fomos Hmong.

 Os Hmong são uma etnia que habita principalmente em zonas montanhosas no Laos, Vietname,    Birmânia, Tailândia e na região montanhosa da China.